daughter
by McMuffin
Summary: She wasn't meant to overhear this; wasn't meant to see Haymitch's fists clenched, his knuckles turning white. She was meant to be asleep and recovering from her visit to Death's doorstep, not fighting back tears and wondering when it was she started picturing her future kids looking like him. / Written for the prompt "Effie always wanted children." Set during Mockingjay.


**Written for prompt 51 "Effie always wanted children" at hayffiechallenge on tumblr_._ The title and song inspiration are from Vienna Teng's _Daughter_.  
**

* * *

_well, it's you and it's me, me with a drink in my hand_

_the ice is tinkling like a wind chime, and late afternoon settles over the land_

_and you're talking about things, interesting just slightly_

_and things that matter too much, to say any way but lightly_

* * *

Somewhere across the room, on the other side of the sterile curtain dividers, a tap dripped. The metal sink made a hollow sound as the water hit its surface almost exactly once a minute. She counted the seconds at first, spent close to an hour verifying the fact that it was roughly one drop per minute - this was how she knew that she'd since been awake another three hours counting the drops.

It was too clean in the hospital, too clinical.

(Her cell was the opposite - dank and darker than anything she'd ever known before.)

Both places were quiet, though. She thought that's why she couldn't sleep; in the silence, the neurons in her brain wouldn't stop communicating, wouldn't stop sending their chemical signals to each other about her recent experiences. She distracted herself with counting the drips - _238_,_ 239 _- and refused to let herself drift off into her nightmares - or, worse, dreams of the future she could never have.

Haymitch was passed out in the seat beside her bed; determined to stay by her side throughout her recovery yet unable to resist alcohol's temptation in processing what they both knew now. He'd been holding her hand, but his grasp had relaxed when he'd blacked out; and she'd removed his dead weight from her palm. She'd woken up earlier that day to a Haymitch smiling so widely she almost couldn't believe it was real, especially with most of her pain being numbed. He'd convinced her that it was, that he was here, that she was safe, that he loved her. She'd found her mouth too dry to speak, but had responded by weakly kissing the palm of his hand and dozing off into a drug-induced sleep.

When she'd woken again from a stifling nightmare it had been to hushed whispers and desperate words.

_"...I'm so sorry... she'll no longer be able to have children."_  
_  
"What?_ _Ever?"_

_"Never... she's been beaten up too badly... Her uterus and - "_

_"The body polish couldn't - "_

_"No, I'm afraid not."_

_"What about... having someone else carry - "_

_"No. Her ovaries are too damaged. I'm sorry..."_

_She wasn't meant to overhear this; wasn't meant to see Haymitch's fists clenched, his knuckles turning white. She was meant to be asleep and recovering from her visit to Death's doorstep, not fighting back tears and wondering when it was she started picturing her future kids looking like him._

She'd pretended to sleep a few more minutes and had then faked waking up and had found herself gazing upon a broken Haymitch. His hands had been clasped tight in his lap, his head downcast as he slouched beside her.

"What's wrong?" She'd mumbled softly, watching as he'd promptly relaxed his hands and forced a smile onto his face.

"Nothing... I was just thinking..." He'd trailed off. "Just happy you're alive."

Effie had smiled softly back at him and allowed herself to become distracted by his words, letting lies and talk of winning the war roll off her tongue; until she couldn't take it anymore.

_"Haymitch, I - I overheard you and the doctor," she whispered, and the finger he'd been tracing over her unbandaged palm suddenly froze._

_"What... what did you hear?" Haymitch gulped, the frowns and sadness he'd been holding back suddenly overtaking his expression._

_"That I can't have kids."_

_"I - sweetheart - I'm so sorry."_

_Her heart felt like it was breaking when he said sweetheart so lovingly, without the former sarcasm, and breaking because of her loss._

_"It's, it's okay... I..." She blinked back tears but was unsuccessful. He squeezed her hand tightly, wanted to lean in and kiss her but most of her body was bandaged and he was afraid of hurting her._

_(She wondered how many kicks did it. One? Ten? One hundred?)_

_"Who wants a child in this world, anyway?" Effie said eventually, her voice cracking, and he stalked off to return with two bottles of alcohol - one already half-drunken._

_She didn't blame him, and took his hand in hers, squeezing it softly when he looked at her with glistening eyes._

She'd have kissed him to make them both feel better, only she didn't want their first kiss to be marred by such sadness.

* * *

When the lights eventually turned on again like the sun rising, and the doctors came in to check on their patients, Effie started to wonder who else was in this hospital, who else was broken. Someone had groaned loudly in pain at around 361 drips and at the 372th drip someone else had come in, talking to the patient in hushed whispers until it was silent again.

The doctors came to see her, assessing her vitals and replacing her IV with another. Primrose Everdeen, so grown up and so changed from the last time Effie saw her, came to bring her some soup and tell her that she was already looking much better. She gulped down the meal, having learnt not to reject food even when she would have preferred dying. With everyone in the wing now being awake, she could no longer hear the tap dripping, but she no longer needed it to distract her. One of the doctors wanted Haymitch to leave, but he woke up waving a fist around and swearing at anyone who got close to him, so they let him stay.

"Did you even sleep at all?" Haymitch asked once his vision focused and he could see Effie clearly - tiny, her body healing underneath her protective white wrapping.

Effie shook her head slightly, staring at him with tired, blank eyes.

"How are you feeling?"

She tried to shrug, but there was a dull pain in her shoulder so she simply didn't reply and stared at his concerned expression.

"Eff - " He almost growled, then realised that as much as he wanted to scream at her to tell him how she was feeling, he couldn't. He regretted getting intoxicated last night, but judging by her silence, she wouldn't have talked about it anyway.

They resumed their unheard thinking about what this meant. Effie wondered if he would still want to be with her, wondered if he even wanted children in the first place, wondered what she and him even _were_. Haymitch wanted to curse the world for dealing them this hand, hating that with her rescue he'd just begun to see hope in his future, kids even, only to have it ripped from beneath him. Neither knew what to say to initiate the conversation, but around noon, Haymitch went to the bathroom and when he returned he once again took her uninjured hand in his and held on tightly.

Effie held onto his warm hand and found tears rolling down her hollow cheeks. Eggless. Wombless. She wouldn't get to carry the have of the man she loved more than anyone else; she wouldn't get to have the future she'd always dreamed of.

(Was is the time they beat her up in front of Peeta? Or the kicks from refusing to eat her meal?)

"I've always wanted a child," she whispered, tasting a salty tear on her tongue.

Haymitch lifted his gaze from their joined hands and met her eyes, hoping that she'd say what was on her mind so he could say what was on his own.

"A little girl... When I was still... _brainwashed_ I wanted a little girl to dress up and parade around, one who everyone would call cute and who would have the famous, fashionable mummy - that's all I wanted to be... a famous escort with a cute daughter and a rich husband. Then, I met you... and you completely changed... everything. My beliefs changed, my values changed... but not..." Her voice cracked. "_Not_my desire to have children."

Her tears were falling freely, and he felt on the verge of them himself. He patiently listened to her, letting her get everything off her chest.

"Even when I knew that my children would have to grow up pretending like I was, I still wanted them because, well, some part of me hoped that the future would be different. And then with the rebellion - I've... I spent a lot of time dreaming in my cell - _hoping_. Hoping for a future where I could still have that cute little girl who played with geese... and who looked half like you."

It was then that he found himself crying and her tears becoming hysterical. He stood up and leaned over her, whispering in her ear as she wrapped her arms around him tightly, hardly able to feel her physical pain. She clung to his shirt with her undamaged hand, her fractured one rested limply on his back.

"I love you, Effie," he told her, placing a kiss on her cheek, trying to console her, console himself. "I love you and... that's all I know. This is fucking horrible but all I can think about is how you're alive. You're _alive _and we might actually win this war and... we'll be together, Eff, in the future. We can... we can get some geese or something, lots of them."

Effie's sobs were broken by brief laughter, and she removed her head from the crook of his neck to nod at him with a weak smile and bloodshot eyes.

"Haymitch... I love you," she told him aloud for the first time, and from the smile that spread across his face, she knew that maybe they would be okay even without a daughter.

* * *

**Feedback would be lovely. :)**


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